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| Wilson, Subcommittee Examine Quality of Care |
October 15, 2003 |
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| Washington, DC – Congresswoman Heather Wilson said today that Medicaid must provide quality of care that instills confidence in those who depend on the program.
Today’s hearing of the House Health Subcommittee is the second in a series of additional hearings examining the challenges facing the Medicaid program. Wilson, who chairs the House Medicaid Task Force, had called for these hearings because of her deep concerns about trends in Medicaid.
“There are problems in Medicaid that need to be fixed,” Wilson said. “The program is set up to pay claims, not to improve people’s health. That’s a serious problem particularly for people who have chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease.”
“The stakes are too large to ignore. Medicaid is now the largest public health insurance program in the United States with 48 million beneficiaries and expenditures of $280 billion each year. It represents seven percent of the federal budget and between 15 and 20 percent of states’ expenditures,” Wilson said. “While we have spent several years now on improving the Medicare program, Medicaid improvement is only now beginning to emerge as the next major health care challenge.”
Today’s hearing was entitled “Evaluating Coordination of Care in Medicaid: Improving Quality and Clinical Outcomes.”
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